Pioneering new ideas of life and health in the 21st Century. The flagship publication for the most innovative and authoritative writer/speaker/instructor on Understanding Conditioning. While he started out like all his friends wondering how to make exercise harder, his breakthrough idea was making exercise as easy as possible -- and therefore inevitable and unavoidable -- as the only effective lifelong strategy for those activities.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

The Obvious Truth About Aging

People
in decline are most obvious -- at the extremities of the head, hands
and feet -- not only because they are the most visible, but also because
they are the sites that will first suffer from a decreasing
effectiveness of circulation resulting in impaired health and
functioning.

That
is so obvious as to be a self-definition of what aging is about -- the
loss of full and effective functioning in those organs that most
uniquely and distinctly differentiate individuals in their proficiencies
-- most meaningfully. Therefore, to place them in primary importance
as an exercise and conditioning strategy, is the only thing that makes
sense -- in light of the greatest deteriorative fears of people promised
a long life -- by which they hope, to still possess all their faculties
-- which are implied to be the critical full functioning at their head,
hands and feet -- even while it is less necessary to exhibit the
greatest range of movement at the "core" muscles necessary for stability
and support -- much more than movement.

That
is their proper role -- and not vice-versa, as many are conditioned to
think, and therefore act, which is the fallacy and shortcoming of their
conditioning efforts to remain robust and fully functional all their
life. Many still think such a thing is impossible -- that the head,
hands and feet should precede the body in its deterioration, rather than
being the smart way not to. In fact, nothing else is possible. If
the circulation is optimal at the extremity, it must be so through the
pathways to it -- but not necessarily so, if one places the greatest
importance at the proximity, or at the source of the circulatory
function -- which doesn't necessarily indicate or even imply the
effectiveness at the extremity -- and in fact, most commonly performed
"exercise" movements, divert or stop the flow to the extremities -- in
misguidedly favoring the development of the larger core, supportive
muscles that subvert the fullest articulation at the extremities.In
all people, regardless of condition and conditioning, the only reliably
working muscle is their heart, and what distinguishes the more
proficient from the lesser, is not that the heart works harder and
faster, but that the head, hands and feet, are capable of expressing
that effectiveness in some meaningful and prolific fashion -- which is
athletics, performance, art, communications, writing, expression, etc.
If all that were necessary is to hook up every one to heart monitors and
measure the rapidity and strength of the heartbeats alone, than surely,
that is what we would do -- and think that by that, everything is
done. But that is obviously just the beginning -- and not the end.Some
will still insist that that is so -- which are like those insisting
that intelligence is the score one obtains on an I.Q. test, even if they
never manifest it in any real life expression and practicality.
Hopefully, that is just a primitive and naive notion that a poorly conceived (arbitrary) measure of anything, is the measure of its significance.In humans, the measure of greatest significance, would not be running the greatest distance, or lifting the most weight, but in consciousness and cognition -- leading to the appropriate (right) action. That is the failing one fears most -- that threatens their survival and quality of life. If the head, hands and feet of the human individual is not deteriorating, that individual is not in declining health and condition -- or what we commonly recognize as aging.That individual simply persists as a vibrant and robustly-functioning individual -- dare we say, highly-actualizing individual. We can not expect more or ask more from that individual -- because they are already outperforming everybody else's expectations of what is humanly possible. In fact, they are defining it -- not only for themselves, but for the whole human species. In that, is the evolution of the species.That
is the unspoken reason we all exist -- to evolve the species, if we can
-- and if we can't, die like all the others before us -- having been
given the chance. That is all, anyone can expect, or hope for. That
recognition and realization, is what we all live for. That is
our life's purpose -- to fully express that possibility, as the greatest
meaning of our own lives -- each in their own way, by their own
calling.For some, it is a golden opportunity, or age -- while for too many, that is the beginning of dread, and despair -- because they have no clue, and are already running out of cards. If one has no idea who they are by then, retirement
is a tough time to find out. One should just be beginning their real
life's work -- having gotten to that point, as the necessary preparation
to embark on that fulfillment and expression.It
is not about just consuming endlessly more food, entertainment and
resources -- with no expectations that one could do better. But that is
what life, and aging, has been up to now -- when enough have arrived to
create a critical mass -- from which new possibilities explode -- because they have to. That is the way of nature.